Description: Writers of the modern essay can trace their chosen genre all the way back to Michel de Montaigne (1533-92). After Montaigne--a collection of twenty-four new personal essays inspired by Montaigne's writings--introduces modern readers and writers to their stylistic forebear and pays tribute to his genius.
Brief description: DAVID LAZAR is a professor in the Nonfiction Program at Columbia College Chicago and the editor of the journal Hotel Amerika. His books include Occasional Desire, The Body of Brooklyn, and Truth in Nonfiction.
Review Quotes: Imagine the dinner party: not just Montaigne but many Montaignes, resurrected in these brilliant essays by twenty-eight of today's most inventive writers. The table is crowded, enlivened by the paradoxical warmth of Montaigne's detachment and by the parry and thrust of ideas, often tantamount to a kind of quiet eros. It's a dinner full of random appetites, the kind of party we leave knowing ourselves a little less, which might mean a little better. What a feast this collection is. It satisfies a hunger--intellect meeting empathy--that enlarges us.--Barbara Hurd "author of Listening to the Savage: River Notes and Half-Heard Melodies"